ABOUT SENATE CANDIDATE PETER SMITH

Politics should be about making a difference in peoples’ lives. However, lately it seems like establishment politicians have lost site of their constituents entirely. Due to the current sanity defying state of politics in Colorado and America, the time has come for a new resistance movement of fresh-faced activists to stand up and push back against the special interests, extremism, xenophobia, and fear being injected into our politics. Colorado is a PURPLE state. It is time to reach across the isle and remember what we can believe in together again.

Our government should be a government whose foremost priority is the will and protection of the people. I am running to be your choice to serve in Colorado’s state senate district 32 because I believe it is time to remind the legislature that they are here to serve their constituents, and not their donors and special interest contributors.

I have always been invested in the development of a prosperous Colorado for EVERYONE. I am a Colorado native, born in the Denver. I spent my early years living in the Bible Park area with my parents and two sisters. We could not afford early Pre-K kindergarten, so my yiayia (grandma in Greek) would care for me most days while my parents were at work. Her and I developed an unbreakable bond that I think of daily. My family later moved to Highlands Ranch around my 6th birthday. I went on to graduate from Mountain Vista High school in 3 years and CU Boulder in 4 years; obtaining a degree in Political Science.

In college a professor assigned Henry Thoreau’s On the Duty of Civil Disobedience. Those words became my doctrine and changed my life. In it I learned that if your government violates your conscience, then it is your duty to challenge your government, not sit idly by while its citizens are exploited by its corruption. Soon after, I chose to take a more active role in politics and social issues on campus. I volunteered to register people to vote, ran for student government, and began advocating for the ideas shared by the millennial generation. I protested for equal rights for all and became increasingly passionate about expanding and testing our 1st amendment rights. I chose to stand up and speak out about how the ultra conservative Liberty Caucus agenda is destroying Coloradan values, and harming the most vulnerable people in our state.

Upon graduating I elected to explore the world. I lived with my family in London for a short period. I connected with my Cypriot roots in the Greek Mediterranean. I scoured Europe, saw the Carnival parade in Rio de Janeiro, celebrated Songkran in streets of Thailand, climbed to the top of the Burj Khalifa, and wandered the Italian countryside. I chose to learn about the world by experiencing it. All of my travels presented many diverse examples of how government can take care of and protect their citizens in different, creative, and innovative ways.

When I returned I began living a more regimented lifestyle. I began working with the Elway Automotive group. However, in 2016, when I realized the Republican Party was willing to stoop to any means necessary to elect Donald Trump and his corporate welfare agenda, even if it meant overlooking possible treason by their party leader to achieve victory, I decided I had to do something. I applied with the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee to work as a field organizer doing whatever I could to prevent this from happening. When Hillary lost, I was beside myself. I decided to take some time off from politics to refocus and contemplate what this new America would be like. I then decided to begin a new career in web development where I developed a true respect for computer coding as a language and began rethinking the future of the American Job.

My reasoning for running is simple. I will not stand for the path this state is on. I was born to do this. I have decided now that it is time to stand up for the people and say that what the two party system is doing to America and to Colorado WILL NOT BE IGNORED. It is time to stand up and say that TABOR is suffocating our state. It is time to stand up and say that we must raise the pay of our teachers, invest in our infrastructure, to protect our environment and our immigrants, and to get corporate money out of politics once and for all. We must do more than take to the streets. It is time for a new generation of Millennial leadership to volunteer and take responsibility for the problems we did not necessarily create. I am ready to stand up and be the voice of the people of Colorado. I will be a voice for you, your loved ones, and the entirety of the middle class. I will not EVER take money from special interests because I see the root to the true evil in politics is the special interest stranglehold over campaign finance.